Temperature & salinity of the oceans

 Temperature and Salinity of Oceans

Temperature of oceans:

About 2/3 of earth is covered with water. The temperature of oceans is not same throughout the earth. It varies with the location and depends on many factors. Different properties can vary the temperature of oceans. It must be remembered that only surface layer of ocean water gets heated by sunlight because the oceans are more than 10,000 meters deep and sunlight can't reach there.  

Factors affecting temperature of oceans:

The temperature of oceans depends on many factors. The main factors on which temperature of oceans vary are as follow:

• The latitude
• The intensity of sunlight

The sunlight penetration:

  The amount of sunlight that can penetrates in oceans is dependent on the clarity of water and the weather. It is so obvious that the part of ocean where water is clear, sunlight can penetrate more than a place where water is murky or dull and small sediments are present in it. The sunlight is blocked due to these impurities present in the water. The weather on the ocean where where there are clouds, of course the sunlight is blocked by clouds and less or no sunlight reaches the ocean water.

The latitude: 

  The water on the earth is divided into 5 main oceans. These oceans are known as Pacific ocean, Atlantic ocean, Indian ocean, Southern ocean and Arctic ocean. The two oceans, Southern and Arctic oceans are present at or near poles and are very cold or remain as ice throughout the year because less or no sunlight reaches there. The tropic and subtropical regions receive more sunlight due to clear skies and latitude.

Importance of oceans temperature:

It is important to note that  at 100 m depths of oceans temperature starts to decline and continues to decline until 500 or 1000 m and till the depth of 2500m, the temperature decrease and becomes 2 C. 
The temperature of water and sunlight are important for the photosynthesis in oceans. The oceanic photosynthesis provides for about 70% of oxygen to the life on earth. It is also an important food source as 50% of the population of earth depends on oceans for food .

Salinity of oceans:

Salinity is the amount of dissolved minerals in the oceans.

Oceans are saline and that's why their water is not suitable for human beings. The amount of salt in ocean water varies at different regions. A liter of ocean water contains about 35g of salt. Salinity of oceans is suitable for many invertebrates and other organisms. The salinity of oceans was a mystery long ago. Scientists thought from where this much of salt came into oceans. The oceans not only consist of salts but many other minerals. 
Leonardo Da Vinci thought that the salt of oceans comes from rivers. This hypothesis was not supported much but it came out to be true to some extent. As it became evident later that if not all, some ratio of salt of oceans was deposited by rivers. 

What does oceans really consists of?

Oceans consist of different minerals. These mineral are transported by rivers that connects with oceans. The river water is rich in minerals as it transports rocks that are rich in minerals.

These minerals include Chlorine, Sodium, Magnesium, Calcium, Sulfur and Potassium and others. Sodium and chlorine are the main minerals and they form salt when combine with each other.

The minerals that are include in other consist of almost every mineral present on earth. 

Factors on which salinity depends:

The salinity varies in oceans from place to place. those places are more saline where there is more evaporation. Salinity is less where rivers discharge their freshwater and also where there is more rain.

Follow for more......